The provincial government formally introduced a new agency Friday that will oversee the $100-million redevelopment of the former Bloomfield school site.

Housing Nova Scotia, formerly known as the Nova Scotia Housing Development Corp., was the winning bidder in a Halifax Regional Municipality request for proposals that concluded last December.

Now they are being tasked with a major redevelopment of the 1.5-hectare site at the corner of Agricola and Almon streets, which will include 10,000 square feet of commercial market space targeted for the creative industries, 20,000 square feet of affordable community and cultural space, and at least 20 per cent of the area reserved for public open space.

Susanna Fuller, co-chairwoman of Imagine Bloomfield, said she was “thrilled” knowing that the project is moving forward.

“The hard work, the bricks and mortar and deciding on the design is ahead of us, but it’s a hugely pivotal moment,” she said on the grounds of the Bloomfield Centre where the announcement was made. “I mean, it’s what we’ve been working toward for a decade.”

In addition to the community and cultural space, the site will have 478 homes, ranging from townhouses to mid-rises, creating a virtual community within a community, she said.

More than 120 groups, organizations, and businesses have expressed interest in setting up at the site, which doesn’t include the more than 500 who currently use space there on a yearly basis, she added.

“Just having dense housing at the same time that you have a whole bunch of other things happening on the site is something we don’t have here,” she said.

With the launch of the new Crown agency, Premier Darrell Dexter said he expects sale of the land to close very soon.

“I hope to have the keys in my possession by the close of business (Friday) and get on with the redevelopment of the site,” he said.

Fuller said she expects construction work could start within 12 to 18 months and take between seven to eight years to complete.

Before then, however, there will be a series of community engagement meetings starting this fall that will determine the nuts and bolts of the design, including how much and where the community and commercial space will be located.

That will be followed by the crafting of a development agreement which needs regional council approval.

“People … will see how a community can, instead of being against development, help shape what that development is,” she said.

While the redevelopment will cost $100 million globally, Housing Nova Scotia president and CEO Robert Wood said it will be $45 million at “the peak point of our expenditures” because the site will be developed in phases, with the revenue from the sale of each completed phase used to finance the next portion of the project.

Forty per cent of the 478 residential units will be allocated for affordable housing, with the rest sold or rented at market rates, the profits of which will be used to lower rents for those affordable units.

“The reality is that we will make money on this project that will then be reinvested into affordable housing options,” Dexter said, adding that they will be looking at accommodating a range of people, from those on social assistance to those who make a modest income.

“You have the opportunity here for someone who makes $100,000 a year to live next door to someone who makes $25,000,” he said.

That is a departure from what Housing Nova Scotia’s predecessor was doing, which was focusing strictly on public housing, Wood said.

“We’re now talking about taking a more mixed-used, mixed-market kind of approach, rather than just only building public housing. We’re saying let’s put a whole range of affordable housing in the same kind of development,” he said.

Coun. Waye Mason (Peninsula South-Downtown) said the project could be used as a template for future development, pointing to the collaboration between the levels of government and community groups as something to aspire to in communities across the city and province.

“If we want to see redevelopment that’s sensitive to the needs of the community, that listens to the community, (look) at the model of the Imagine Bloomfield redevelopment with the community engagement that’s gone into it, and then the government aggressively supporting it,” he said. “This is the way to do things in those communities.”